Is Kung Fu Dead ?

Is Kung Fu dead?

As one of Bruce lee’s avid fans and followers I often wonder if the art and the artist that first got me interested in martial arts is slowly becoming just a myth.

I am sure that I am not the only old school martial artist that is wondering if the advent of MMA is killing off what was once a fascinating and jaw dropping spectacle, you see Bruce Lee was first shown to me when I was you young boy, I watched a film called Enter The Dragon and from that day I was hooked on Kung Fu, I am sure that my story is familiar to many young person that may have found that they were taken advantage of by others. This could be in the form of sexism, racism or it may even have been about the colour of your hair or the size of your body.

When bullies get to work they will find something that you react to and milk it for all it is worth, the way that Bruce Lee portrayed himself in films was of being the smaller weaker looking guy that bullies love to mock, when I saw the way that Bruce Lee dealt with much bigger guys I thought this is for me, I wished that I could stand up to big bullies the way that Bruce Le did in his films

Bruc Lee In Action

Since Royce Gracie made public his form of martial arts called Brazillian Jujitsu all manor of Bruce Lee Kung Fu fans have questioned what it was that we had witnessed in the early Kung Fu films, my whole childhood fantasy of learning what Bruce Lee had learned and becoming the best bully beater on the planet was turned upside down, thank you Royce. Well no point crying over spilled milk instead what we must do is face reality and look at what Kung Fu can offer, we were told that the birthplace of martial arts was in China which is also the home of Kung Fu so what does this mean? Well I think that it means that there must still be a place for Kung Fu as a combat art, this led me to seek out what Kung Fu was actually for.

I believe that Kung Fu was a real martial art when it was first developed but because we had no need to go around killing others to survive mainly because of guns and other weapons, we started to look at Kung Fu as an art of sort of doing without actually doing, what I mean is that maters of Kung Fu could see that there were other benefits to Kung Fu other than purely as a killing art. The benefits range from agility fitness, in a non boring way, and mental challenges of memory and meditation.

In a good way MMA has made some of us lazy Kung Fu enthusiasts open our eyes and look deep into what can be gained through the practice of Kung Fu

As you can see from the video above many of the moves that are associated with Kung Fu have clearly been used in the now very popular MMA bouts. It’s not really the name of what you do that is important or where it comes from or who’s name is behind it, it’s as Bruce Lee said many decades ago what works works and what does not work get rid of and and try something that does work, in reality it is as simple as that.

There is no right style or wrong style all styles are no styles the creating of STYLES is quite new in the grand scheme of things, so if people are saying to you Kung Fu is no good , it can’t work in real fighting, just remeber that all forms of combat are meant to evolve and adapt, we must all let go of our egos, because egos are what hold us all back. So is Kung Fu dead? The answer of course is no it’s not but it is evolving.